


drawn by repetition

by orphan_account



Category: Joker (2019)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 08:28:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21051353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Sui iuris.





	drawn by repetition

Bruce sleeps like the dead.

Arthur enjoys watching him. He rests so rarely that it seems an indulgence, his dark lashes fanned out against pale skin, his mouth an uncomplicated flower in bloom. He carries a tension in his shoulders that never leaves him, but his limbs are looser, his face stiller. Arthur can nearly see past skull into brain, like this, as if through a glass-bottom boat.

He does not enjoy watching him for very long today. Bruce's eyes flutter open, finding Arthur immediately. "I told you not to let me fall asleep," he says in that curiously toneless way of his, and Arthur mumbles, "Shark," before he can stop himself.

Bruce is Arthur as both are Thomas, unfortunately; the smile that Bruce gives him, not quite reaching his eyes, is far more of a surprise than the response he gets when Bruce says, through a barely-audible back-of-the-throat yawn, "A school of fish is more appropriate."

-

Arthur had been desperate to keep Bruce in school. His appetite for knowledge was insuppressible, but his apathy for the social song-and-dance of Gotham's private system of education was a trump card that he pulled whenever he felt Arthur was becoming too insistent. Forged signatures from a mysterious uncle by the name of Richard "Dick" Grayson (the idea was Bruce's, but the name was Arthur's, a crass attempt at humor after Arthur had torn through _Dice_ three times, trying to make heads or tails of it) weren't enough to keep truancy officers at bay, and so Bruce simply stopped attending altogether.

It didn't make him a pariah, much to his chagrin. If anything, it bolstered his mystique. Bruce remained friendless but frustratingly occupied nonetheless: a house party here, a gala there. His peers were too transparent with inexperience to do anything but snatch baggies of coke from Bruce's fingers, their company shallow in its obligation; Gotham's elite exerted little more effort than a sympathetic shake of their heads, whispering among each other anticipations of Bruce's overdose at nineteen and subsequent redistribution of assets.

Arthur's desperation, his insistence, had dissipated quickly. Bruce, as usual, was right.

-

Bruce teaches Arthur. His lessons are broad in range, his scope wide-reaching. He buys Arthur a pair of gloves from a luxury boutique in the heart of the city - to enhance his ensemble, ostensibly, but to obscure his fingerprints more relevantly. He teaches Arthur how to use a knife so cleanly that wounds seem to appear out of thin air, a sort of magic trick. He reinforces positive behavior and punishes Arthur practically before each mistake is made. 

He does not have to teach him how to suck cock. Arthur had been taught early, and had caught on quickly. He knows how to neutralize his gag reflex, knows how to relax his jaw in subtle increments so as not to lock up. And Bruce had been much smaller, anyway, when Arthur had first put his mouth on him. He's bigger, now. But Arthur has taken bigger.

"Do you enjoy sucking cock?" Bruce asks him. He rarely tells Arthur anything - each learning experience is intended to be puzzled out, and he enjoys hearing Arthur answer him as if he will respond in anything other than the affirmative, enthusiastically. Arthur knows this, and he is grateful for it, in its own way. Bruce wants nothing more than to keep him sharp, and Arthur does not appreciate being coddled, anyway.

He pulls off of Bruce, leaning back on his feet to look at him. Even now, he hesitates to verbalize his desires, but Bruce cups the back of his head and tugs at the hair there, close to the root. It throbs dully, a sweet ache to complement the one between his legs. "Do you enjoy sucking cock?" Bruce repeats.

Arthur doesn't know the correct answer, doesn't know if Bruce wants him to degrade himself like a whore or swear fealty at his feet. His chest aches at the thought of disappointing him; he is immobilized by indecision.

"Be honest," Bruce reminds him, softly stern, as if he, too, can see through Arthur like glass.

"I love sucking your cock the most," Arthur finally answers. It's honest, but tactful, he thinks. He does love sucking cock, has ever since his mother introduced him to John, but Bruce is different. Special, if he's feeling sentimental, which is often. There's a certain familiarity to the taste of him, to the weight. There's no comparison.

-

Arthur and Bruce share blood.

Thomas lays interred with Martha at the Gotham Cemetery; somehow, he is warmer in death than he ever was in life, a tender inscription on their shared stone the only kind words that he had ever given them. But he does not share their blood.

Bruce, as a child, had bitten. He'd told Arthur in the forthright manner typical for his age that he enjoyed it greatly. "I can see my teeth in your neck," he'd say, sounding awfully self-satisfied. Arthur bruises easily; you would not have to look particularly intensely at his neck to see that Bruce, in fact, had sunk his teeth into it. He still bites, as a teenager, but he likes leaving secrets on Arthur's thighs, his ass. Arthur likes the flagrancy and the secrecy both.

He hadn't liked the knife at first, though. Had felt it an uncanny mimicking of a murder. He does not want Bruce dead.

Bruce likes playing dead, though. He arranges for Arthur to ambush him in the bath, letting him choose the time and date so that he can be suitably unprepared, and rape him at knife point. He likes smearing Arthur's makeup with his wet hands, grasping at his face with uncalloused fingers and short, manicured nails. He thrashes about so that Arthur has no choice but to lose control of the blade for a moment, slicing into Bruce's jaw, curving up like a smile from the edge of his lips to the apple of his cheek. It isn't deep, but it bleeds, and Bruce comes all over Arthur's nicest suit.

Arthur puts his mouth to the wound, afterward. Bruce, the picture of vitality and youth, comes a second time, though not after urging Arthur on. "Kill me," he repeats, "kill me, kill me," and Arthur lets the knife fall to the floor, steel on authentic Italian tiling, and sucks, and sucks. He kisses Bruce's mouth bloody, and moans quietly into it when Bruce bites into his bottom lip with his sharp, clean teeth, breaking the skin.

Bruce does not apologize for staining Arthur's suit. He undresses him piece by piece, and draws the damp fabric to Arthur's mouth to kiss. Arthur sucks, instead. It earns him a laugh.

-

Bruce likes Arthur in colors that pop. They contrast, he says, in interesting ways. As he rests, Arthur buries his face in his neck and tells him that he looks like someone accidentally booked a party clown for Bruce's wake. The comparison is implicit: Bruce, dressed down in dark, simple fabrics, asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the alt text of [this](http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=636) _A Softer World_ strip.
> 
> "Sui iuris" is Latin for "of one's own right" and is used to refer to a common-law marriage.
> 
> This was written for a friend who requested "light mental/emotional manipulation done to Arthur." In true personal fashion, that request took a backseat to absolutely incoherent rambling. If you treat this fic with a fine-toothed comb, Friend, you may notice some of your other requests peppered into it.


End file.
